For my third January installment on Fleming Education, I must turn to my mother, who in 1960, after my father, my sisters and she moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, began pursuing her college degree, a journey that wouldn't truly end until 1984, when she earned her M.A. in Public History, graduating at the same time that I graduated with my own B.A. Even beyond that, my mother remained the most intellectually curious person I have ever met. The umblilical cord that connected the two of us may have been intellectual/academic as much as it ever was anatomical.